


Penitentials

by historymiss, JeanLuciferGohard



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Gen, the medieval penitential fic everyone was obviously slavering for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26141284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanLuciferGohard/pseuds/JeanLuciferGohard
Summary: In which Mercymorn the First compiles a list of her many sins, and Augustine the First offers his opinions.Please offer JeanLuciferGoHard all of your adulation for an utterly pitch-perfect Augustine.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 100





	Penitentials

Being a record of sins and their penances, compiled by the hand of the Saint of Joy, Mercymorn the First, for the instruction and benefit of the Eighth House. To the glory &c of the Emperor John Gaius, first risen of us all, who trod the ways of death to restore us to life, great and benevolent lord, etc etc [fill in copy 2nd draft].

 _{_ _Found this in the kitchen, Joy, my love—_

_“Trod”? Really?_

_I do recall you thought it ‘obscene’ call him by his name; might want to revise that on the next draft, people will start to think you’re a hypocrite_

_If you wish to credit me for any of this, which you ought to, because it’s all_ **_very_ ** _good, I would suggest “compiled by the hand of the Saint of Joy, and perfected thus by that of the Saint of Patience”_

_You’re welcome.}_

[N.b check spellings/leniency/specificity (40 days symbolism good but too short?). Poss. scope for diagrams e.g mortification of flesh- follow up w/C. Devise cataloguing system for easy reference]

 _{_ _Oh, leave her out of this, Mercy, you know how she’s been}_

For taking the name of the most revered Emperor, the kindly prince of Death, our saviour and resurrector, in vain, they shall do twenty days’ penance for each invocation. 

_{_ _C.F. the above, darling, where you’re calling him “John”, just like you did yesterday. Not a very specific instruction either, if we’re being pedantic, which I’m not, but you are}_

He who amuses himself with libidinous imagination shall do penance until the imagination is overcome.

Those who persist in idle chatter and foolish talk, once warned, may be silenced by necromantic or mundane means for forty days.

 _{_ _Joy, you are a_ **_peach_ ** _, just an absolute fucking delight, and I would so dearly love to see you try}_

For those that mix linens of a colour with those that are white during washing [ex. coverings for the feet among sacramental robes], they shall do penance for forty days. If the offence be repeated, flogging.

 _{_ _Good Lord, where would you even get the flogger, C. won’t give you hers, I know she won’t. Anyway, it’s John who leaves his socks in, which I imagine puts an ugly theological wobble in this absurd house of card you’re constructing. What’s next, my dear, ‘he who removeth the last biscuit from its place of rest without first to offer it to his brothers and sisters in faith has forgotten the Light of the Lord, and shall be put to fast in darkness‘?_

 _Utterly farcical_ }

For those who revere the tomb of the Ninth in defiance of what was buried insensate among the dead, they shall be considered heretic and shall not share in the blessings of the Glass. 

  * Remember always that the Tomb is not a place of honour



_{_ _She was a better woman than you, Joy, and we all liked her more}_

Unwittingly to absorb blood with the saliva is not a sin.

Eating in the confines of a meeting space is a sin, and shall be atoned for with penance for ten days.

 _{_ _Make it twenty}_

For those who also speak after a meeting has finished, to extend the meeting with their own self-important words, they shall also do penance for ten days.

The breaking of a vow is to be punished with fasting and penance for a minimum of forty days: if the vow be to kin or to a brother or sister in faith, or in arms, they must atone by mortification of the flesh and penance for ten years.

 _{_ _It_ **_was_ ** _your turn at the dishes yesterday, and I did notice, when I found this, they still hadn’t been done—when can I expect you to start either the washing up, or the mortification of your holy flesh? Let me know.}_

For the sin of betrayal, the canon is to examine the context and assign the penance accordingly: a minimum of forty days’ penance should be worked from as a baseline. Exceptions are:

  * To betray your cavalier or your necromancer is a grievous sin: penance shall be performed in sorrow for ten years and mourning for a further five.


  * For the cardinal sin of betraying the Emperor Himself, no penance but death will suffice, as you have betrayed the one who gave up His life and death for us all. 
    * _{Rework this on your next draft; I feel a distinct lack of holy terror at the prospect of death, which I put down to poor word choice here, and a lack of metaphorical clarity}_



For those who claim the name of Eden, they are also to be declared heretic and killed wherever they are found: not even their death, however, is a penance for the sin of defying the God who became Man, and the Man who became God.

To believe unshakably, unquestioned, not in love but in fear of a life without that belief, is a sin, and she shall do penance to remind her spirit of the body in which it resides.

To talk to the dead without having summoned their sensate spirit is a sin. _It is a sin._ You will do penance of denial, and not name her, having forfeited that right.

 _{_ _Mercy, angel, I would gleefully skin you my fucking self, if you’d only ask. For ten years. Twenty. If you need reminding, I would be happy to remind you for the next myriad, my dear. I’m warming considerably to the idea of transcendence via extreme physical torture—I have a number of thoughts in that direction, do let me know when you’re next free._

 _She was a frothy little imbecile with less sense than a fence post at the beginning, and a gibbering fanatic at the end and I hope she_ **_chokes_ ** _you, Joy._

_‘Penance of denial’_

_How utterly and fantastically maudlin of you. Rip your eyes out before breakfast like the rest of us and_ **_do_ ** _stop baffling on with these absurd titles.}_

For she who kills her own heart, making of it a hollow place, and of herself a tomb, she shall do penance for a thousand thousand years, and it shall not be enough.

 _{_ _No._

_It isn’t.}_

**Author's Note:**

> Some of these penances are real ones from the medieval Penitential of Theodore. https://twitter.com/DiscipulusU. Have fun!


End file.
